When using a muzzle-loaded weapon, particularly a rifle, in a hunting environment or the like it is necessary to have a supply of percussion caps, along with the powder charge, projectile etc., in order to be able to repeatedly load and use the rifle. Each percussion cap is installed on a nipple which, when the weapon is fired, is struck by a hammer to ignite the charge.
In the relatively recent resurgence of interest in weapons loaded and fired in this manner, a number of devices for holding and releasing the percussion caps have been conceived and a few have appeared on the market. The general objective of all such devices, commonly referred to as "cappers", is to hold a number of percussion caps, perhaps a dozen or so, and to provide some technique for releasing them one at a time so that they can be placed on the nipple.
For various reasons, these cappers have not been totally satisfactory. Some of the disadvantages of cappers presently available are that they contain parts which rattle as one moves, a counter-productive situation when one is hunting. It should be borne in mind that a capper is normally carried by suspending it on a cord placed around one's neck. Some cappers deform the caps when they are pushed out of the magazine. Others have a mechanism for dispensing the caps which can get caught in brush while one is walking through the woods, resulting in dumping the caps onto the ground. If such a capper is carried in one's pocket, the protruding device can catch on the pocket while it is being withdrawn, again dumping the caps. This can be a frustrating situation when one is deep in the woods without a replacement supply.
In other devices, caps can be turned sideways in the magazine so that they are not in the proper position for loading. Cappers also generally require each cap to be hand-fed into a "loading area" prior to their being placed on the nipple of the muzzle loader. This is a difficult task under some circumstances such as when the user's fingers are cold.